The Koch Bros might be emptying their change purses in order to keep Texas from tinting blue, but the state is in no danger of becoming a real battleground, new polling suggests. Also: People continue to think in large numbers that other states should not mess with Texas. Also: That’s…
Back in February, when the Texas legislature was in session the first time, Representative Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth, authored a bill aimed to authorize “a marriage between two persons of the same sex in this state and repealing the statutory prohibition against the recognition of a civil union or similar…
Senator Wendy Davis stood beneath the dome for 11 hours in Mizuno sneakers (and, quite possibly, adult diapers) filibustering abortion legislation that could have shuttered all but a handful of providers. At one point nearly 200,000 tuned into watch, until three rather sketchy points of order brought brought her marathon…
It’s a science, folks: State Senator Wendy Davis is way more attractive than the rest of her colleagues in the Legislature, with the possible exception of Wayne Smith. Capitol watchers have known this for years, but it wasn’t until the rest of America set its eyes upon Davis’ filibuster that…
From a purely tactical standpoint, Democrats maintained momentum during this summer’s abortion debate. The impassioned testimony delivered by hundreds of pro-choice women into the wee hours of the morning, Senator Wendy Davis standing for 11 hours to deliver an epic filibuster, the party’s David vs. Goliath victory — all stand…
The narrative that’s emerged on the right in the wake of the defeat of sweeping anti-abortion legislation this week isn’t that Senator Wendy Davis jiu jitsued a victory with a Frank Capra-worthy filibuster. Rather, it’s that the democratic process was hijacked by an unruly mob of out-of-state agitators whose cacophonous…
Now that the euphoria that followed Wendy Davis’ Senate filibuster two nights ago has faded, Democrats are back to facing the likelihood that the Republicans’ death grip on state government isn’t going to loosen easily or soon. As the Texas Tribune’s Jay Root explains, Republicans embarrassed themselves, but Governor Rick…
There was going to be a rally last night one way or the other. Local activists had scheduled the Dallas Day of Decision Rally for 7 p.m. of whatever day the Supreme Court issued its ruling on Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act, and depending on how those…
There are many layers of absurdity that surround the abortion debate at the state Capitol over the past several days. There was state Representative Jodie Laubenberg’s claim that rape kits clean out pregnancy and Republican senators’ flimsy rationale for ending Wendy Davis’ epic filibuster. There was the deafening, 15-minute roar…
The dust still hadn’t settled on the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down a key part of the Voting Rights Act when Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott dispatched a press release announcing that the state’s voter ID law, which the courts had up put on hold, would “take effect immediately.”…
Max Kalhammer seems like he was a much chattier guy when he first arrived at City Hall in 2009 as the city’s first-ever bike coordinator who didn’t think cyclists should be forced to fight traffic. He talked frequently with the media and worked closely with advocacy groups like Bike Friendly…
Last night, Senator Wendy Davis’ epic filibuster against an antediluvian piece of abortion legislation was ended because Roe v. Wade apparently isn’t “germane.” So, the “unruly mob” up in the gallery finished the job for her. The votes could not be counted in the din before the special session ended…
Even before Fort Worth Democrat Wendy Davis took the Senate floor late Tuesday morning and launched into the filibuster that would ultimately grab the nation’s attention and kill attempts to railroad abortion restrictions through the state Legislature, she was at the top of Texas Republicans’ hit list. Davis, they realized,…
The version of sex ed taught to Dallas ISD students, which is representative of what’s on offer elsewhere in Texas, is completely absurd. It’s tough to reach any other conclusion when the curriculum compares premarital sex to a frog slowly boiling alive in a pot of water and likens condom…
This wasn’t supposed to happen. When Governor Rick Perry called a special legislative session and, later, tacked abortion onto the agenda, he was effectively declaring that the proposed restrictions, some of the toughest in the country, had enough support to become law. And he was right, in a way. Comfortable…
When, in the wee hours of Monday morning, House Republicans ended debate and pushed through one of the toughest anti-abortion bills in the country, it seemed destined to sail on to Governor Rick Perry’s desk. It merely needed the OK from the Senate, which shouldn’t be a problem given that…
State Representative Jonathan Stickland gets major props for authoring one of the strongest email privacy measures in the country, requiring law enforcement to get a previously unnecessary warrant in order to read emails older than 180 days. But that remarkable display of common sense is very much an exception for…
Technically speaking, Angela Hunt never stopped being a lawyer. It’s just that she spent the vast majority of her waking hours over the past eight years doing yeoman’s work on the City Council. She gave her incendiary farewell on Twitter a couple of weeks back, though her tenure won’t officially…
For the second time in three days, Democrats put up an epic, all-night fight against proposed abortion restrictions in Texas. This time, they lost. Republicans railroaded the legislation through the House of Representatives on a 97-33 vote right around 3 o’clock this morning after Democratic lawmakers’ 15 hours of impassioned…
The hearing of the Texas House State Affairs Committee meeting kicked off at 1 p.m. Thursday with a mere two items on the agenda: a pair of bills by Representative Jodie Laubenberg, a Republican from Parker with the modest aim of ending legal abortion in the Texas, or coming as…
Bad news, “extremists”: If you try to get tickets to the upcoming shindig at Dealey Plaza, the one memorializing the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination, you will be denied. “What’s an extremist?” you may ask yourself, which is precisely the sort of question an extremist would ask. Minus 10…
Most area churches have been relatively cautious in reacting to the recent vote by the Irving-based Boy Scouts of America to lift its century-old ban on gay scouts. First Baptist’s Robert Jeffress rather predictably suggested that the move contradicts a scout’s promise to be “morally straight,” but the outcry here…
